Suddenly there was the sound of a woman’s laughter. She stopped, petrified. It came from the little thatched shed twenty yards away. The side of the shed was towards her and only the front of it was open, so that she could not see who was within it. But she knew that two people were there. One was a woman, and something told her that the other was Alfred Wimple. For a minute she could not stir. Then, as if it had been waiting for a signal, the rain began to fall, with a soft, swishing sound, upon the thatched roof of the shed, upon Aunt Anne’s thin cashmere shawl, upon all the drooping vegetation. The mistiness grew deeper, and from the distances the night began to gather. The black figure standing in the mist knew that a few yards off there was hidden from her that which meant life or death. She went a little nearer to the shed, but her feet almost failed her, her heart stood still, a sickening dread had laid hold of her. “I will go round and face them,” she thought, and dragged herself up to the shed. But as she reached the corner she heard Alfred Wimple’s voice—
“You know it’s only for her money that I stay with the old woman, Caroline.” She stopped, and rested her head and hands against the back and sides of the shed, from sheer fright at what was coming next.
“Well, but you don’t give me any of it,” the woman answered.
“I don’t get any myself now.”
“Then what do you stay with her for?”
“Because it won’t do to let her slip.”
“It’s mother that makes such a fuss—it’s not me; though, of course, it’s hard, you always being away like this.”
“Tell her she won’t gain anything by making a fuss,” Alfred Wimple said, in the hard voice Aunt Anne knew so well.
“She says all the four years we have been married you have not kept me decently three months together.”
Aunt Anne held on to the shed for dear life, and her heart stood still.